Architecture Program Report Tulane University New Orleans ...

to the idea of programming and the relationship a program has to the design
process. In point of fact, the program is almost always presented as a
skeletal list of requirements devoid of narrative content. Students interrogate
various aspects of the program in order to devise an active client, or,
depending on the instructor’s proclivities, they appropriate a fictional or factbased
scenario that enables the promotion of substantive programming. This
is true, for instance, in the Second-year design programs (DSGN 210, 220).
While the program is presented as a skeletal list of needs and facts, the
students are asked to find the program for the program. This is not to say
that the mechanics of use are superseded by the demands of a conceptual
approach; rather, that architecture requires a marriage of the two and that a
conceptual approach is not ephemerally constituted, but is formulated
according to what is found in real terms.
The ethic associated with this point of view is asserted in the Third-year
Comprehensive Studio (DSGN 320), taught in the spring semester of the
Third-year program. The program is presented as a skeletal list of needs
of some complexity (such as a hotel or school) on a site in New Orleans.
Students are required to work through the myriad conditions associated
with the program, including circulation, siting and environmental controls,
service, space (room) requirements, accessibility, life-safety requirements,
and so on. Data collection—either empirically, analytically, or precedent
generated—impacts the substantiation and development of the program for
use, while also suggesting certain parameters regarding the program
(meaning, conception) for the architecture itself.
Finally, the thesis courses (DSGN 510, 520) require the student to
generate a program through the appropriate means for data collection.
This occurs in both the first and second semester of thesis year. While
students are indeed able to use existing programs, the critical interrogation
of the requirements presented is the subject of intense scrutiny—as it is in
the development of any architectural program. For instance, a program for
a school would not only be based on a set of needs and the consequent
formulation and delimitation of certain kinds of uses, but on the educational
curriculum itself. The configuration of uses, the suppression and elevation
of others and the consequent matrix of relationships must be supported by
the suggestion of a program for the program. Hence, students are
encouraged to find as many documents and as much material associated
with their given project in order to establish both the use and the
conceptual mode of operation—the dual components of effective
programming.
Additional opportunities for the students to respond to Research Skills
occur across the design curriculum, but perhaps the most pointed of these
is during the URBANbuild semesters during the fourth year (DSGN 410
and 420), both of which predilect the Thesis semesters’ (DSGN 510, 520)
work.
Finally, the entire AHST sequence, both required and elective, is geared
towards the formation of research skills, since students often look to their
papers, mid-term and final essays as opportunities for honing research
skills.
In addition to these courses, the ATCS and RBST series of courses